1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to sporting equipment and, more particularly, to paintball systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Paintball games have become very popular. In conventional paintball games, the object is to hit your opponent with a paintball and have the paintball break upon impact—thereby marking the opponent and removing them from the game. Paintball games may be played in a variety of locations, both indoors and outdoors. Persons may participate in paintball games as individuals or as a member of a team. Many civilians may play paintball games for recreation and sport, while military personnel may play paintball games as part of their training.
Conventional paintballs are generally spherical and typically include a shell that encapsulates a marking substance. The marking substance (typically referred to as “paint”)=may include any of a variety of substances configured to leave a mark. One exemplary marking substance comprises vegetable oil, water and a coloring agent. Conventional shells are typically relatively thin and configured to break upon impact, allowing the marking substance to mark an opponent.
Conventional paintball systems may include a gun or marker configured to fire paintballs, for example, at an opponent. Conventional paintball systems may also include a hopper connected to the marker. The hoppers are typically mounted on an upper portion of the marker. Some conventional hoppers are configured to load paintballs into the marker using gravity. Other conventional hoppers are configured to load paintballs into the marker using a mechanical pump and/or gravity.
When selecting a hopper, players typically must compromise between paintball capacity and hopper size. Advantageously, a smaller hopper may present a smaller potential target for opponents to hit and may be less obstructive to a player's view. Because a smaller hopper may have smaller paintball capacities, a player may have to repeatedly refill the small hopper. Unfortunately, players may be more vulnerable targets while refilling their hoppers. To minimize this vulnerability, players often hastily refill their hoppers, wasting many paintballs that spill to the ground. In contrast to the smaller hoppers, the larger hoppers may have larger paintball capacities, advantageously reducing the number of times players must refill their hoppers. Unfortunately, a larger hopper may present a larger potential target for opponents to hit and may be more obstructive to a player's view. Further, because the larger hoppers may have larger paintball capacities, the hoppers may disadvantageously weigh more when filled with paintballs—making it more tiresome for a player to support the hopper and the marker.
Players typically prefer markers with higher firing rates in order to shoot more paintballs in less time, which may increase their chances of hitting a target such as an opponent. In fact, marker firing rate can be a very important factor in a marker purchase. Consequently, many marker manufacturers tout their marker's firing rate, which is often their marker's “dry” firing rate (that is, the firing rate without any paintballs actually being loaded into the marker).
However, to fire a paintball in practice, the marker typically must wait for the paintball to be loaded into the marker (sometimes called “drop time”) and for the paintball to settle in the marker (sometimes called “paintball debounce time”). In particular, if the marker is fired before the paintball is properly loaded and settled, a bolt of the marker could break the paintball. This breakage could create a mess requiring substantial cleaning before the marker could properly function (or even function at all). During a competitive paintball game, players may not have sufficient time to clean up such a mess. And, even if the players had sufficient time, the players would be more vulnerable targets while cleaning their systems. Consequently, this paintball breakage would leave players with two poor alternatives: playing with an improperly functioning (or non-functioning) paintball system or cleaning their paintball systems with a higher risk of being hit by an opponent.
Waiting for the drop time and/or the bounce time associated with a particular hopper or other loading system may disadvantageously reduce a marker's effective firing rate. Unfortunately, the drop times and/or the debounce times associated with some conventional hoppers may be relatively long. Further, because the drop times for some conventional hoppers may vary significantly, a marker may have to wait for a drop time that accommodates all or most of those varied drop times in order to eliminate or reduce the risk of unintentional paintball breakage.